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Rich Dad, Poor Dad

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who controls the past controls the future, who controls the present controls the past.<br />

Seeing What Others Miss<br />

As he climbed into his pickup truck, outside of his little convenience<br />

store, he said, "Keep working boys, but the sooner you forget about needing a<br />

paycheck, the easier your adult life will be. Keep using your brain, work for<br />

free, and soon your mind will show you ways of making money far beyond what I<br />

could ever pay you. You will see things that other people never see.<br />

Opportunities right in front of their noses. Most people never see these<br />

opportunities because they're looking for money and security, so that's all they<br />

get. The moment you see one opportunity, you will see them for the rest of your<br />

life. The moment you do that, I'll teach you something else. Learn this, and<br />

you'll avoid one of life's biggest traps. You'll never, ever, touch that Tar<br />

Baby."<br />

Mike and I picked up our things from the store and waved goodbye to Mrs.<br />

Martin. We went back to the park, to the same picnic bench, and spent several<br />

more hours thinking and talking.<br />

We spent the next week at school, thinking and talking. For two more weeks,<br />

we kept thinking, talking, and working for free.<br />

At the end of the second Saturday, I was again saying goodbye to Mrs.<br />

Martin and looking at the comic-book stand with a longing gaze. The hard thing<br />

about not even getting 30 cents every Saturday was that I didn't have any money<br />

to buy comic books. Suddenly, as Mrs. Martin was saying goodbye to Mike and me,<br />

I saw something she was doing that I had never seen her do before. I mean, I had<br />

seen her do it, but I never took notice of it.<br />

Mrs. Martin was cutting the front page of the comic book in half. She was<br />

keeping the top half of the comic book cover and throwing the rest of the comic<br />

book into a large brown cardboard box. When I asked her what she did with the<br />

comic books, she said, "I throw them away. I give the top half of the cover back<br />

to the comic-book distributor for credit when he brings in the new comics. He's<br />

coming in an hour."<br />

Mike and I waited for an hour. Soon the distributor arrived and I asked<br />

him if we could have the comic books. To which he replied, "You can have them if<br />

you work for this store and do not resell them."<br />

Our partnership was revived. Mike's mom had a spare room in the basement<br />

that no one used. We cleaned it out, and began piling hundreds of comic books in<br />

that room. Soon our comic-book library was open to the public. We hired Mike's<br />

younger sister, who loved to study, to be head librarian. She charged each child<br />

10 cents admission to the library, which was open from 2:30 to 4:30 p.m. every

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